Question on KBC Poker foam mod

[nhwhaup]

I got my new KBC Poker and proceeded to do the foam mod as shown in the review.  That worked just perfect but then in another post I saw that the person who had originally done the regular foam mod cutting the strips and putting them in the valley sections, redid his mod with a full piece of foam instead which gave more support and even covered the ridges which had also made some noise.  So instead of leaving well enough alone, I went ahead and did the full foam mod.  This works very nicely and gives it nice support and is pretty quiet, but......

There's always a but. Now that the screws are a bit tighter in order to get the PCB tightened down over the foam, the keyboard appears a bit pinched and pulled down nicely where the screws are but the rest of the keyboard is kind of puffed up. So I guess I could remove the foam and the keyboard would look normal again or leave it with the foam and it looks overall a little wavy or puffed in the middle where there are no screws to hold it down tight. Have any of you that have done the foam mod noticed the same puffing up? Any suggestions to keep the foam and avoid the puffing?

[mr626]

Hmm, I never bothered with the foam mod for my Poker- I do notice that some keys sound slightly different to others but it doesn't bother me.

What purpose do the ridges serve? Would it be possible to file them down to allow more room for the foam? Personally I wouldn't be too keen on leaving the board 'pinched' if I were you- the stress on the plastic wouldn't be good for it.

[nhwhaup]

I agree not being comfortable with the pinching going on around the screws. Definitely too much stress. I took it all apart, once again and removed the foam I had in there and then replaced it with shelf liner type foam which is much thinner and more flexible than the previous foam. So I guess I'm all set now. The keyboard is looking pretty even now with no pinching or puffing.

So now I think I am all set and can just enjoy it. I really like this keyboard. It is just an awesome little lightweight board and still loving the red switches. For me, nothing beats them.. even my topres don't hold a candle to the reds.  Happy camper with this little gem.

[mr626]

I agree not being comfortable with the pinching going on around the screws. Definitely too much stress. I took it all apart, once again and removed the foam I had in there and then replaced it with shelf liner type foam which is much thinner and more flexible than the previous foam. So I guess I'm all set now. The keyboard is looking pretty even now with no pinching or puffing.

So now I think I am all set and can just enjoy it. I really like this keyboard. It is just an awesome little lightweight board and still loving the red switches. For me, nothing beats them.. even my topres don't hold a candle to the reds.  Happy camper with this little gem.

Glad you like it. Yeah, quite happy with mine too (with cherry blues). Probably the only major thing that I don't like about it is having 'Esc' in the second layer on the tilde key. Who uses tilde more than Esc???

[theferenc]

Actually, I might just. I know I use the ~ a lot for scripting, and I write a lot of those. But ESC isn't something I actually use all that often, unless I'm using vim, which also isn't that often.

[mr626]

Actually, I might just. I know I use the ~ a lot for scripting, and I write a lot of those. But ESC isn't something I actually use all that often, unless I'm using vim, which also isn't that often.

Aha, fair enough. As a heavy vim user though I like my Esc key

[sordna]

Glad you like it. Yeah, quite happy with mine too (with cherry blues). Probably the only major thing that I don't like about it is having 'Esc' in the second layer on the tilde key. Who uses tilde more than Esc???

You know that you can lock it to Escape by hitting FN+Q right ? Only problem is, you then can't access the tilde anymore. I actually remapped my menu key to tilde because I always want Escape on.

[mr626]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. And as theferenc says tilde certainly isn't useless, its just that for my usage I'd prefer it if Esc was the default, and tilde was the 2nd layer.

All in all I think the Poker is a great board, and they've done a good job of making the most out of the layout.

[theferenc]

I think it's ESC on the second layer for a purely practical reason. ESC has no shifted code. Meaning to hit it, you only need the 2 keys depressed (FN and `). But ~ is the shifted variant of the ` key, so to hit that, you would have to hit three keys. I definitely feel you though, as losing access to ~ is not an option, but if you're a vim user, ESC is just too commonly used to not have. It's a hard problem.

Solution: get a HHKB or a bolt modded IBM in UNIX layout, depending on size requirements.

[mr626]

Ah, good point, I hadn't considered that.

As to your 'solution' well, as per my other thread hopefully I will have an IBM on the way shortly.

[theferenc]

I didn't say it was a good solution. But is *a* solution. And it's an even more compact layout than the Poker, I believe.

[mr626]

I didn't say it was a good solution. But is *a* solution. And it's an even more compact layout than the Poker, I believe.

Sorry, I left out a smiley in my post- I like your solution! I don't actually need the compact-ness of the Poker in my current setup, so if I get that IBM terminal board I mentioned in my other thread your solution will have come to pass perfectly :-)

[hawkwind]

Map Capslock to Esc. Problem solved.

[dsjbirch]

I'm thinking about getting a poker, I don't use escape much during the day except, I do use vim.

To avoid using escape, use ctrl-[ instead.. It's a standard mapping.

I remap caps to control, I like it.